Campus Health Alert: Second case of mumps

Staff from the Mary Walker Health Center has informed the administration of a second positive case of the mumps at SUNY Oswego. The individual student, who left campus last weekend and saw a physician back home on Monday, received the positive results yesterday afternoon. Having served the 5-day isolation period back home, the student is no longer contagious and will be returning to campus today.

There is no action required of the campus community at this time. Having already taken precautionary measures over the past month to ensure that the SUNY Oswego campus community was vaccinated, we will continue to closely monitor the health of our entire campus. I encourage all students, faculty and staff to follow basic practices that can help you avoid the mumps: be sure to regularly wash your hands with soap and water; sneeze and cough into a tissue or your elbow to avoid spreading the disease through airborne particles; and avoid sharing drink, food, and utensils. Anyone feeling sick (experiencing mumps like symptoms - fever, headache, muscle weakness, stiff neck, loss of appetite, and swelling and tenderness of one or more of the salivary glands situated along the angle of the jaw and inside of the mouth) should immediately visit the Walker Health Center.

Given that the two students who have contracted mumps had received the MMR vaccination, we are reminded that the vaccine prevents most, but not all, cases of mumps. According to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), “people who have received two doses of the MMR vaccine are about nine times less likely to get mumps than unvaccinated people who have the same exposure to mumps virus.”

For more information, please contact the campus Health Center at 315.312.4100.